New emergency plan for Cork county to include flood prevention plans in wake of Storm Babet
Town File And Action Youghal Cork Include Midleton Picture Its Flood Protocols And Plan Environs Will East The For Town
A new overall emergency plan for Co Cork is expected to be made public at the end of this month and specific plans also being drawn up to create flood responses for each of the county’s eight municipal districts.
The local authority revealed the moves after it was asked to update the county-wide plans it last published three years ago, especially in light of the multi-million euro damage caused in East Cork last October by Storm Babet.
The request was made by Social Democrats councillor Liam Quaide, who asked when the previous emergency plan published in 2021 was to be upgraded as it was out of date following last October’s events.
In response, Kevin Morey, the senior council official in charge of the plans, said the countywide overall emergency plan, which deals with major incidents such as industrial accidents, fires, and chemical spills, will be finalised later this month and be made publicly available on the local authority’s website.
He added, however, more micro flood prevention and flood reaction plans would be issued for each of the county’s eight municipal district councils.
Mr Morey said these would be extremely detailed and involve proposed reactions in all settlements within each municipal district.
“When they are finalised, there will be a briefing to each municipal district council and then [follow-up] meetings with community groups in these areas. These local plans are being finalised at the moment. I’d say in a matter of weeks they will be completed,” Mr Morey added.
He said Storm Babet was unprecedented, “resulting in new impacts and affecting some locations which hadn’t previously been impacted”.
Mr Morey said as a result of this, additional measures had been identified which could be introduced to better respond to events of this scale.
The senior official added the East Cork Flood Action Plan would include protocols for Midleton town and Youghal town and its environs. The environs will include actions for Mogeely, Castlemartyr, and Killeagh, and will also consider Ladysbridge and Whitegate.
Mr Quaide said the inter-agency emergency response on October 18, 2023, for Storm Babet was not perfect, as no response could be in such extreme circumstances.
“There are always lessons to be learned after such events. And there were serious shortcomings in certain areas. Many residents in Mogeely, for instance, experienced a lack of timely intervention from the agencies involved and relied heavily on neighbours for support, or from voluntary community groups,” he said.
“Raising this is not about digging up old grievances or an attempt to cast blame at any agency or indeed the emergency staff who were working flat out throughout the region on those days and nights. However, this reality is relevant to the need for a clear, publicly accessible updated emergency response plan that may go some way towards putting minds at ease in anticipation of future events, whose occurrence is very likely,” he added.
Mr Quaide pointed out there remained confusion in East Cork around basic aspects of an emergency response to a future flood event, such as where sandbag filling machines would be located.
Fianna Fáil councillor Gillian Coughlan said what were once deemed as one-in-100 year floods were more like one-in-25 now and there was an onus on the council to set up early warning devices on all rivers which are subject to flooding.